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  • Cited by 8
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
June 2012
Print publication year:
2008
Online ISBN:
9780511816888

Book description

Much remains uncertain about the life of Edgar Allan Poe, the mysterious author of one of the best-known American poems, 'The Raven', the Gothic romance The Fall of the House of Usher, and the first detective fiction, The Murders in the Rue Morgue. This book provides a balanced overview of Poe's career and writings, resisting the tendency of many scholars to sensationalise the more enigmatic aspects of his life. Benjamin F. Fisher outlines Poe's experiments with a wide range of literary forms and genres, and shows how his fiction evolved from Gothic fantasy to plausible, sophisticated psychological fiction. Fisher makes fruitful connections within this diverse body of work, and offers analyses of the major works. The critical afterlife of Poe's work is charted, and the book includes a guide to further reading, making this a handy starting-point for students and readers new to Poe.

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Contents

A guide to further reading
Allen, Michael. Poe and the British Magazine Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969. Important for Poe's derivations in theme and style.
Benton, Richard, P. “Some Remarks on Poe and His Critics,” University of Mississippi Studies in English, n.s. 3 (1982): i–xii. Useful overview of works about Poe from his own era to the twentieth century.
Budd, Louis J. and Edwin, H. Cady. Eds. On Poe: The Best from American Literature. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 1993. Convenient marshaling of significant critiques of Poe in this influential scholarly periodical.
Eddings, Dennis W. Ed. The Naiad Voice: Essays on Poe's Satiric Hoaxing. Port Washington, NY: Associated Faculty Press, 1983. Selection of important assessments of Poe's comic propensities.
Fisher, Benjamin F. Ed. Poe at Work: Seven Textual Studies. Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society, 1978. The only book to focus on Poe's crucial revisions.
Fisher, Benjamin F. Ed. Masques, Mysteries and Mastodons: A Poe Miscellany. Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society, 2006. Essays that bring to bear recent critical approaches (several on race), as well as several reprinting important contemporaneous documents.
Fusco, Richard. “Poe and the Perfectibility of Man,” Poe Studies 19 (1986): 1–6. Valuable for Poe's skepticism about the theme of progress in American society, a topic of considerable interest in his era.
Hayes, Kevin J. Ed. The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Chapters cover all important aspects of Poe's career, from poetic techniques, through Gothicism, race, critical outlook, comic impulses; several chapters treat important individual works.
Hayes, Kevin J. Poe and the Printed Word. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. A valuable History of the Book approach to Poe; also treats his reading.
Jacobs, Robert D. Poe: Journalist & Critic. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969. The best single book on Poe's critical philosophies.
Kopley, Richard. Ed. Poe's Pym: Critical Explorations. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 1992. Essays that offer perspectives, from important Poe scholars, on all aspects of Poe's novel.
Ljungquist, Kent P. The Grand and the Fair: Poe's Landscape Aesthetics and Pictorial Techniques. Potomac, Md.: Scripta Humanistica, 1994. Excellent study of Poe's works that incorporate popular landscape theories of his day.
Peeples, Scott. Edgar Allan Poe Revisited. New York: Twayne; London: Prentice Hall International, 1998. Fine brief biography, along with synthesis of many ideas regarding Poe's writings.
Pollin, Burton R. Dictionary of Names and Titles in Poe's Collected Works. New York: Da Capo Press, 1968. Helpful directory to expedite research on Poe's works.
Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography [1941]. Reprinted with intro. by Shawn Rosenheim. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985. Remains the best biographical account.
Ramakrishna, D. Ed. Perspectives on Poe. New Delhi: APC Publications, 1996. Fine collection of essays that cover all aspects of Poe's work.
Thomas, Dwight and David, K. Jackson. The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe 1809–1849. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987. Matchless assembly of facts about Poe's life and writings. When the compilers cannot verify a fact they say so. Indispensable for anyone interested in Poe.
Vines, Lois Davis. Ed. Poe Abroad: Influences, Reputation, Affinities. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1999. Essays that attest Poe's popularity throughout the world, from his day to ours.
Whalen, Terence. Edgar Allan Poe and the Masses: The Political Economy of Literature in Antebellum America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. The best recent charting of Poe's financial/literary status, with the most sensible treatment of Poe and race.
Wilbur, Richard. “Poe and the Art of Suggestion,” University of Mississippi Studies in English, n.s. 3 (1982): 1–13. An updating/expansion of views on Poe's achievements in symbolic writing.

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